Polls Are Delivering A Clear Message To Democratic Primary Voters-- Nominating Hillary Puts America At Too Big A Risk

Yesterday, Democratic primary voters in another state swung heavily for Bernie and against the conservative candidate of the status quo and of the Wall Street/K Street axis of plutocracy. Bernie beat her in West Virginia 51.4-36.0%, and winning every single county in the state, although she did OK in the two counties that are considered DC suburbs, Jefferson and Berekley. The evening before, Monday, everyone had been entertained when PPP released their latest polling data early and exclusively to Rachel Maddow and she led her show with a story about how both the generic band Nickelback (39-34%) and generic lice (54-28%) are more popular with the American people than Donald Trump is. Trump's overall unfavorables are mind-boggling-- 34-61%. In fact, by a margin of 47-40% voters like used car salesmen better than Trump and they prefer root canal surgery to Trump by a margin of 49-38%. But as crazy and prone to believing half-baked, crackpot conspiracy theories as Trump fans are, only 7% think Ted Cruz's father was involved in assassinating JFK and only 5% of Trump's ignorant mob think Cruz is the Zodiac killer. (65% do think Obama is a Muslim, 59% think President Obama was born in another country and 24% think Antonin Scalia was murdered.)

The news, however, wasn't all wonderful for the Democrats. A picture is emerging-- from Monday night's PPP poll and Tuesday morning's swing state Quinnipiac polling, that low-info Democratic primary voters backing Hillary are risking a November Trump victory unnecessarily. Confirming every poll measuring this in the last year, Bernie-- because of his popularity with voters under 30 and with independent voters-- is a far safer choice than Hillary in November against Trump. Quninnipiac measured voter sentiments in 3 big swing states: Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Hillary narrowly leads Trump in Florida and Pennsylvania and Trump is already ahead of Hillary in Ohio. But Bernie is ahead of Trump in all three states and in each case has bigger support than Clinton.

• Florida

Clinton leads Trump 43-42%
Bernie leads Trump 44-42%

• Ohio

Trump leads Clinton 43-39%
Bernie leads Trump 43-41%

• Pennsylvania

Clinton leads Trump 43-42%
Bernie leads Trump 47-41%

How many Democratic primary voters have you heard say, "Well, of course Bernie is a million times better than Hillary but she has what it takes to beat Trump and he doesn't?" That a line that was planted early in the corporate media, repeated endlessly, bolstered by Clinton's million dollar social media effort and embedded into the minds of low-info Democrats who aren't following the election cycle too seriously yet. But it is counterfactual. Although Democrats love Hillary and are mostly eager to support her-- as are a tiny and electorally insignificant handful of conservative Republicans turned off by Trump-- the gigantic bloc of Independent voters do not like her or trust her and don't want to vote for her, but do like and trust Bernie and do want to vote for him. In fact, PPP found that undecideds in the Clinton/Trump match-up go by a decisive 41-8% margin for Bernie in a Bernie/Trump match-up. It's noteworthy that PPP, which has a marked Clinton bias, also points out that the difference between Clinton and Bernie against Trump is mammoth among the most independent-minded group of voters, those between the ages of 18 and 30. Clinton beats Trump by a very healthy 49-27% among these millennial voters. But Bernie makes Trump a non-factor and beats him by an unheard of margin-- 70 to 14%.

As Qunnipiac's Peter Brown made clear, "Six months from Election Day, the presidential races between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the three most crucial states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, are too close to call... The gender gap is massive and currently benefits Trump. In Pennsylvania, Clinton's 19-point lead among women matches Trump's 21-point margin among men. In Ohio, she is up 7 points among women but down 15 points with men. In Florida she is up 13 points among women but down 13 points among men."

Quinnipiac shows that Trump and Clinton are underwater in terms of favorability in each of the swing states and Bernie has greater favorables than unfavorables in each state. For example, in Pennsylvania, Trump has a favorable rating from 39% of voters and an unfavorable rating from 55%. Hillary is even more disliked. Her favorable rating is 37% and her unfavorable rating is 58%. Bernie has favorables from 50% of Pennsylvania voters and unfavorables from just 36%. The picture is the same in Florida and Ohio: Clinton and Trump disliked by voters while voters like Bernie.

PPP emphasized that, despite the nay-sayers all over cable news, Republican voters "have quickly unified around Donald Trump, making the Presidential race more competitive than it has previously been perceived to be, with Hillary ahead 42-38% [nationally]... Clinton leads Trump 78-9 among Democrats... while Trump leads Clinton 78-7 among Republicans. Although much has been made of disunity in the GOP, it is actually just as unified behind Trump as the Democrats are behind Clinton. 72% of Republicans now say they're comfortable with Trump as their nominee to only 21% who they aren't. Those numbers are little different from the ones among Democrats that find 75% of them would be comfortable with Clinton as their nominee to 21% who say they would not be. Bernie Sanders continues to do the best in general election match ups, leading Trump 47-37 with Johnson at 3% and Stein at 1% in the full field, and leading Trump 50-39 head to head."


Did you watch Jon Stewart's take on Hillary's grotesque and horrifyingly unattractive inauthenticity? AND... do you want to help save the country from what could be a truly disastrous, and possibly existential, Trumpist takeover?